In re Paul E. Buchanan; In re Generations Funeral & Cremations Services, Inc.

Summary

The Michigan Court of Appeals considers consolidated appeals involving Paul E. Buchanan and Generations Funeral & Cremations Services, Inc. The court holds that respondents violated Michigan’s Occupational Code and related administrative rules by operating and advertising funeral and cremation services from three unlicensed arrangement offices, even though no human remains were handled at those locations. The court affirms the administrative and circuit-court decisions.

Holdings

1. The arrangement offices were funeral establishments and respondents engaged in the practice of funeral directing and mortuary science there, even though no human remains were handled at those locations.
2. GFCS's Farmington Hills establishment license did not authorize mortuary-science practice or operation of funeral-establishment business at the three other locations; each location required its own establishment license.
3. The Prepaid Funeral and Cemetery Sales Act did not authorize respondents to offer or perform services requiring a mortuary-science or funeral-establishment license at unlicensed locations.
4. Ansell did not support respondents because it addressed the embalming component of mortuary-science licensure and did not eliminate the separate statutory regulation of funeral directing.
5. Competent, material, and substantial evidence supported the determination that respondents' signs and website advertised funeral-directing and mortuary-science services as available from unlicensed locations.
6. The administrative law judge did not abuse his discretion by excluding the affidavit and letter, and any error concerning the letter was harmless.
7. The circuit court properly limited review to the administrative record, and the constitutional challenge was unpreserved and not considered.

Questions Presented

1. Whether operating arrangement offices that sold and arranged funeral and cremation services and merchandise, despite not handling human remains at those locations, constituted the practice of funeral directing and mortuary science requiring establishment licenses.
2. Whether the Occupational Code and related administrative rules required each GFCS location to be separately licensed and prohibited doing business or advertising services from an unlicensed location.
3. Whether the Prepaid Funeral and Cemetery Sales Act authorized respondents to conduct prepaid and at-need business at the unlicensed locations notwithstanding the Occupational Code.
4. Whether Ansell v Department of Commerce, Board of Examiners of Mortuary Science supported respondents' claim that nonscientific funeral-related activities did not require licensure.
5. Whether the administrative law judge abused his discretion by excluding Buchanan's affidavit and counsel's settlement letter, and whether the circuit court improperly refused to consider material outside the administrative record.

Disposition

affirmed